


Side Effects

by cosmicmewtwo



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: ... this is a godless amalgamation of every trope I said I'd never write, .......and we're never speaking of it again, M/M, Mating Bites, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Sex Pollen, Weird Alien Physiology, irresponsible handling of questionable pharmaceuticals, kakavege week prompt: Poison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 03:58:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17573441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicmewtwo/pseuds/cosmicmewtwo
Summary: Vegeta accidentally exposes himself to a strange chemical in Bulma's lab.





	Side Effects

* * *

 

Vegeta had never been in this annex of Bulma’s lab before, and he could see why—the room seemed less like a lab, and more like the storage room of a mad scientist with a hoarding compulsion. Every surface of the lab benches were strewn with bits and pieces of obsolete tech—a gutted centrifuge here, a broken microscope there—and Vegeta struggled around a column of stacked cardboard boxes before he finally found Bulma.

“Vegeta, whatever it is, it’s gonna have to wait a minute,” Bulma snapped over her shoulder before she went back to what she was doing—which was furiously pulling manuals and rolls of schematics off a particularly cluttered shelf.

Vegeta crossed his arms, and leaned against a fume hood that looked about a decade overdue for a decent cleaning.

“The gravity room is broken,” he grunted.

“What do you mean, it’s ‘broken’?” Bulma said as she began unrolling a blueprint on the limited bench space she could find. “What the hell did you do to it?”

“I didn’t do anything,” he said, his brow wrinkling in offense. “When I went to turn it on, it just did _nothing_. The main console keeps blinking some error message—error zero forty-six, if that means anything to you.”

Bulma drummed her nails on the benchtop, her brow furrowing as she considered Vegeta’s words.

“Error zero-forty-six,” she repeated under her breath. “Zero-forty-six—ah, shit. It’s the fucking Higgs field condenser then. Probably came uncoupled, if I had to guess. About time, really, that part is way overdue for a replacement—”

Vegeta sighed and rolled his eyes as Bulma muttered the usual technobabble to herself. He felt his gaze instead drawn to a couple racks of small, glass ampoules that were stacked at the edge of the fume hood. He absently plucked one out and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, blowing on it lightly to remove the thin film of dust that had settled on it.

“Is it something that will take long to fix?” Vegeta asked, watching as a bright, jewel-red liquid swirled within the glass vial.

“I don’t know, maybe a day—unfortunately I don’t have the time right now, Vegeta, I’m trying to dig up some old materials for some bullshit patent lawsuit—you know how it is—”

“Is it something _I_ can fix?” Vegeta said, narrowing his eyes as he tried to read the tiny font on the ampoule’s label.

“Oh, fuck no, I don’t need you accidentally creating a singularity on my property—” Bulma looked up from the unrolled blueprints, and her frown vanished abruptly in a look of wide-eyed alarm. “Hey, would you stop playing with that?”

“Why? What is it? Have you gone and secretly developed some kind of Saiyan-killing poison in this dungeon of a lab?” Vegeta asked flatly as he gave the ampoule another swirl.

“Those samples aren’t even supposed to be in here,” Bulma huffed, and she leaned in to grab the vial from Vegeta, but he pulled his hand away at the last moment.

“Perhaps I’ll give it back,” he suggested, making no effort to suppress his urge to smirk, “if you fix the gravity room for me.”

“You are such a dick, Vegeta,” Bulma spat. “I’m serious, give that back—”

Bulma swung again for Vegeta’s hand, but he pulled away just as he had before. He indulged himself in the ensuing scuffle, grinning as Bulma cursed and grabbed at him, missing him every time he yanked his hand away.

But Bulma was relentless, and Vegeta was careless. It only took a moment for Bulma to lunge at him suddenly, and Vegeta miscalculated—his mocking laughter was abruptly cut short by the sound of his fist hitting the wall, and he heard the crack of glass before he felt it.

The stinging quickly followed, and Vegeta opened his fist to find shards of shattered glass embedded in his palm, bright red liquid mixing with darker drops of blood.

“For fuck’s sake!” Bulma shouted, and she grabbed Vegeta’s palm to take a closer look at the damage. Vegeta made no effort to fight her this time, their game now thoroughly ruined.

“So, about the whole Saiyan poison thing,” Vegeta muttered, watching as Bulma carefully plucked the the glass out his skin with her fingernails. “I trust that’s not what this actually is?”

Bulma rolled her eyes, and rummaged through an assortment of broken tools before pulling out the least grimey rag she could find. “Trust me, as much as that would have come in handy at one point, I have better things to do.”

“Then what is it?”

Bulma pressed the rag into Vegeta’s palm, staunching the mild bleed. “Trade secret, Vegeta.”

“Right,” Vegeta said, wrinkling his nose as he pulled his hand away. “So if I start sprouting tumors because of your secret chemistry experiment—”

“Oh, don’t be such a hypochondriac drama queen,” Bulma said, throwing her rag back down where she had found it. “I mean, this stuff was safe enough to clear phase two trials—shame it never made it to market, really—but, yeah. You’re probably good. Just let me know if your liver suddenly fails, or your skin starts peeling off, or whatever.”

Vegeta raised an eyebrow. “Is that… a possibility?”

“Eh. Like, theoretically,” Bulma shrugged.

Vegeta somehow found that less than reassuring.

“I mean, it would kind of serve you right for fucking around in my lab when I _told_ you to stop,” Bulma added.

That much, at least, Vegeta couldn’t argue with. “Right,” he muttered, and he crossed his arms, ignoring the steadily fading sting in his palm—though the strange tingling that was spreading across his hand felt no better. “Anyway—the gravity room?”

Bulma sighed. “Let me see what I can do about it this afternoon.”

 

 

XXX

 

 

Waiting for Bulma to repair the gravity room proved to be more time-consuming than Vegeta had expected, and by that afternoon, the generator was still offline. But Vegeta’s desire for a decent workout hadn’t waned as the hours had passed—in fact, he felt himself itching for a fight more and more as the day dragged on.

So he settled for his next-best option.

Goku was in his fields when Vegeta found him, though he seemed far from occupied. He was hiding in the shade, leaned against the side of his tractor, and as Vegeta approached, he could see Goku yawn widely before taking a deep drink from a water bottle.

“Oh, hey Vegeta,” Goku sputtered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand when he noticed Vegeta drawing near. “Not often I catch you ‘round here. What’s up?”

Vegeta landed on the ground a few feet away from Goku, his boots sinking slightly into the freshly tilled earth

“What do you think?” he said, crossing his arms. “I’m here to spar with you.”

“Here?” said Goku, and Vegeta was quickly starting to hate Goku’s wide-eyed bumpkin act more than he usually did. “Not really a great place to train, to tell you the truth—”

“I didn’t mean _right here_ ,” Vegeta sighed, rubbing at his temple. “I’ll spar anywhere you’d like. I’m just itching for a goddamn fight and you, despite everything, always deliver.”

Goku re-capped his water bottle and tossed it into the cab of his tractor. “All right. I mean, I’d like to, but I should probably finish up here first—”

“Finish up _what_?” Vegeta flared impatiently, gesturing with one hand at the fields behind him. “Kakarot, you looked about three minutes away from a fucking nap when I found you here.”

“I—yeah, but—if I get home late, Chi-Chi’s gonna—”

“Quit the excuses,” Vegeta snapped, and leaned forward suddenly to wrap his fist around Goku’s bicep. “Use your Instant Transmission and take us somewhere else.”

“Geeze, a ‘please’ would be nice, you know—”

“ _Now_ , Kakarot.”

Goku hesitated, but Vegeta only tightened his grip on Goku’s arm.

Goku finally relented with a weak nod, and lifted two fingers to his forehead.

 

 

XXX

 

 

“Man, it’s starting to get dark—don’t you think we should call it a day?”

Goku wasn’t wrong—the sun was dipping low toward the horizon now, casting deep shadows behind the spires of rock that dotted the wasteland. Twilight was moments away, and nighttime not far behind it, but Vegeta didn’t care. He’d fight in the dark if he had to.

“We’re just getting started, Kakarot,” Vegeta spat. He had Goku’s fists in his hands, trapped in a last-second block, but now he pushed him away.

“You’re off your game, Vegeta,” Goku said, barely stumbling from Vegeta’s assault, finding his footing quickly on the rocky ground. “Maybe we can pick this up tomorrow. After we’ve had some rest?”

“The hell are you talking about, Kakarot?” Vegeta spat, but his denial was hollow—he knew he had been struggling to even keep up with Goku during their spar, and he’d been a fool to think he was hiding it.

But Goku was right. Vegeta was feeling.... off. Distracted. A prickling heat had been burning across his skin all day, and Vegeta didn’t know if it was the oppressive heat of the wasteland, or the dust kicked up in the breeze, but he felt hot and itchy all over. Focusing, much less landing a proper hit, was frustratingly difficult when all Vegeta wanted to do was claw his skin off from the inside.

The strange throbbing at the center of his injured palm wasn’t helping matters.

“You just seem… I dunno, not yourself,” Goku explained, earning a sharp glare from Vegeta. “I know your reflexes are better than this.”

Vegeta’s hand twitched, the impulse to take a swing at Goku’s jaw almost too overwhelming to ignore. But he resisted, and instead rubbed his thumb over his glove, massaging the cut beneath.

“Are you… feeling okay?” Goku went on with a tilt of his head, giving the impression of a curious dog, and Vegeta’s urge to hit him flared once again. “You even… kinda smell different.”

Vegeta recoiled. “I smell different?”

Goku shrunk back, his hand reaching for the back of his neck. “Well, I mean—it’s not bad or anything, it’s just—” and Vegeta didn’t miss the way he shifted uneasily, his nostrils flaring almost imperceptibly, “—different.”

“Whatever,” Vegeta hissed, finally admitting defeat as he moved to turn away from Goku. “You win for tonight. But you’re fighting me again here tomorrow.”

“Uh-huh. I suppose I don’t get a ‘please’ this time, either.”

“Just meet me at noon, Kakarot.”

 

 

XXX

 

 

Vegeta attempted to follow Goku’s vague, insipid suggestion— _just get some rest_ , like that was some magic reset button for his lackluster performance that afternoon—but found it was impossible. Exhaustion evaded him, even into the early morning, and he spent long hours tossing and turning in the dark, blurring in and out of formless dreams. He found himself waking repeatedly into an unbearable heat, and no matter how greedily he drank from the water on his bedside table, nothing slaked the scraping thirst that burned in his throat. At some point, he considered waking Bulma up just to start a fight with her about her abuse of the room’s thermostat, but he drifted off just as quickly, pulled back into the suffocating place between his dreams and consciousness.

By the time sunlight finally spilled through the room’s wall of windows, Vegeta was dimly aware that a throbbing ache had gripped every muscle in his body.

Bulma waked quietly, rolling over to press a kiss to Vegeta’s lips, and Vegeta immediately felt a sharp pain tingle across his teeth. His felt a sudden impulse to bite down—to sink his canines into her bottom lip—but no, her pulse was too slow, her lips suddenly didn’t taste right against his mouth—

Vegeta pulled away from her, sitting up to drag his palm across the hot, sweating plane of his forehead.

“Bulma,” he rasped, “what the hell was in those vials? From yesterday, in the lab?”

Bulma frowned, blinking slowly in her half-awake state. “What?”

Vegeta pulled his hand away from his brow, and looked down into his palm. The cut had nearly healed, the thin red line of it almost invisible in the folds of his skin, but the throbbing was still there. And growing stronger.

“What the hell was I exposed to?” Vegeta said, curling his hand into a fist. “I’m—I’m having some kind of reaction—”

“Trust me, Vegeta,” Bulma snorted, edging closer to him as she sat up. “If that drug was actually capable of its intended effect, you wouldn’t be able to keep your hands off me right now.”

Vegeta blinked. _What the fuck was that supposed to mean…?_

“I mean, I guess you do look kind of flushed—” Bulma went on, slapping her palm on Vegeta’s forehead. “Oh, shit. You’re definitely running a temperature.”

Vegeta shrugged away from her hand, hissing. “I _told_ you—”

“Oh, don’t be a big baby about it, it’s probably just a man cold,” Bulma laughed as she threw off her sheets and climbed out of bed. “Trunks caught some virus at school last week, you probably just picked up whatever he had—just get some more sleep. I’ll go find you something for that fever—”

“No,” said Vegeta, shaking his head as he scrambled out of the bed. “I’m meeting Kakarot today to train.”

“Oh give it a rest, Vegeta” Bulma scolded. “Can’t you skip _one_ day?”

“No,” Vegeta replied bluntly. He couldn’t stay here. His skin burned, his teeth ached, and he felt so restless and uncomfortable that he thought his bones might tear loose from his body at any moment—but there was no relief to be had here. He moved quickly towards the closet, pulling the first battlesuit he could find, even though the last thing he wanted right now was to feel something tight and constricting against his skin.

He slid into it anyway, ignoring the concerned look from Bulma.

 

 

XXX

 

 

Even though he was far too early for their scheduled spar, Vegeta was surprised to find Goku already waiting for him when he arrived.

He frowned, opening his mouth to ask, but Goku was already babbling at him.

“Hey, Vegeta,” Goku said, wincing as he rubbed at the back of his neck like he was trying to work out some painful muscle kink. Vegeta noticed his face was already flushed and dewy with a thin sheen of sweat, even though the sun was still hours away from its full strength. “I—I’m really not feeling so good today, I dunno how great of a sparring partner I’m gonna be—”

“And yet you still showed up,” Vegeta growled, ignoring how everything around him seemed to spin even as he stood still in front of Goku

“Well, yeah, I didn’t want to go back on a promise—”

“A wise choice,” Vegeta said through grit teeth, struggling through each word as he tried to ignore the grating itch that seemed to be seared across every nerve in his skin. He found himself quickly regretting his choice of clothing—his armor felt like a heated weight on his chest, and he wanted nothing more than to claw off the battlesuit beneath.

But instead he shook his head, trying to bring the world back into focus.

“Get into your battle stance, Kakarot,” Vegeta commanded, and Goku obeyed—but Vegeta noticed the way Goku wavered on his feet as he settled back on his heels, and how he had to wipe his brow with the back of his hand before he put his fists up. Maybe Bulma was right—maybe this affliction _was_ contagious.

Vegeta wasn’t sure who moved first, but it was a relief when he felt the first hit—suddenly Goku was before him, his first punch blocked by Vegeta’s arm, and Vegeta was hissing as he hit back.

It was a blur after that—their spar quickly became more desperate than focused, each of their strikes aimed with devastating force, but failing to quite land on their mark—Goku’s fists grazed clumsily against Vegeta’s jaw, bruising when they should have shattered bone, and Vegeta’s kicks were so heavy and unbalanced that he found himself losing his footing every time. Eventually they took to the air, but it was a faltering effort—in his fevered state, Vegeta could do little more than force himself to just stay airborne, and Goku didn’t fare any better. Their ki sparked and clashed as they fought, but it was too sputtering and unpredictable for proper attacks or a transformation, and the two of them were reduced to snarling and frantic grabbing—

By the time they finally fell back to earth, they were both panting hard for their breath.

Their landing was rough, and Vegeta’s joints ached from the impact. His back and hips were crushed against the hard ground, his breath suffocated beneath the heat and deadweight of Goku’s body—but Vegeta found the strength to gasp when he felt Goku’s nose pressing against his neck, Goku’s breath hot against Vegeta’s already feverish skin.

“You smell different,” Goku panted, his breath shuddering as he rubbed his face beneath Vegeta’s jaw, breathing in Vegeta’s scent. “ _Really_ different—”

“Kakarot—” Vegeta hissed, finally summoning the strength to curl his fists into the front of Goku’s shirt.

“It’s—really good, actually—”

But Goku didn’t have a chance to finish his bizarre thought—Vegeta managed to flip him, and with a strangled yell, he dragged Goku to his feet by the front of his gi.

“Get up, Kakarot!” he barked at him. “We’re not finished!”

He pushed Goku back, and Goku stumbled, only catching himself at the last moment. Vegeta rushed toward him, his fist pulled back and prepared to land a hook across Goku’s mouth, but Vegeta’s vision blurred, his head spinning—and suddenly Goku had Vegeta’s fist in a block, and soon they were wrestling and snarling into each other again.

As the fight wore on, each moment blurring sluggishly into the next, Vegeta began to realize that their spar was hopeless—they were both sweating, exhausted, each of their moves so clumsy and telegraphed it felt like they were fighting drunk. But Vegeta couldn’t stop—somehow, Goku’s fists were the only thing giving him any sort of relief from the fever threatening to burn him up from the inside.

“Vegeta—I think we should take a break,” Goku finally gasped as he blocked another mistimed hit from Vegeta. Vegeta snarled, something wild and dark rising up in him as he swung for Goku again, and this time his hit landed, his fist colliding with Goku’s mouth—Goku hissed as his lip split open, blood trickling down his chin.

The smell of it was harsh and coppery and stronger than Vegeta expected, and he felt dizzy from the scent alone—but it was enough to burn through the haze of Vegeta’s fever. Vegeta salivated, his papery dry mouth suddenly watering for the smell, and a painful, desperate impulse lanced through him before he could even put a name to it.

All it took was a rough push and a few steps forward before Vegeta had Goku slammed up against the cliff-face behind them, his tongue scraping across Goku’s lips, lapping up the bleed.

The taste of blood on his tongue was a thick, warm relief, and Vegeta bit down on Goku’s lip, hoping for more, as if he were drinking the only elixir that could cure him of this miserable fucking affliction. He could feel Goku writhing beneath him, his hands grabbing at Vegeta’s waist like he meant to push him away, but instead he pulled him forward, his fingers digging hard into Vegeta’s side.

“Vegeta—” Goku rasped, and he pulled his mouth away from Vegeta’s, even as he pressed their bodies closer together. “Vegeta—what’s…. What are you—”

Vegeta’s mouth found Goku’s throat, his tongue smearing away the last of the blood, and Vegeta uttered a dark, bitter laugh against Goku’s skin. Gods, it felt good to feel Goku’s pulse under his mouth, each beat singing out for Vegeta’s teeth like a siren song, a rising, staccato rhythm that would torture Vegeta until he could taste it for himself.

“I’m in fucking heat,” Vegeta said, spitting out the last word like it was poison on his tongue. “Gods, how could I have been so—stupid, _fuck_ —”

“Heat?” Goku repeated breathlessly. “I—I don’t know what that means—”

Vegeta didn’t know how to explain the concept to Goku—he was barely familiar with it himself, having only heard sparse stories from Nappa and Raditz to go by. But he understood the basic, biological underpinning: going into heat was a vestigial behaviour, a callback to whatever primordial ancestors had given rise to the modern Saiyan. It served little purpose in Saiyan culture, having long been swept aside by the more sophisticated courting rituals that had followed, but it could still be induced in the right circumstances. There wasn’t any one single thing known to trigger it, but certain risk factors were known: too much time spent in the Oozaru form, recently healed injuries, certain unstable lunar orbits, among other things—exposure to unlabelled pharmaceuticals in dark basement labs, perhaps.

But the root cause wasn’t important. The dangerous thing about heat was that once the hormonal cascade started, it became a runaway reaction: powerful enough to drive the affected Saiyan to the brink of madness, and causing the release of a pheromone signal that could trigger a similar response in other, susceptible Saiyans.

And there were only two ways to stop it: One, let it runs its course, and endure the days of suffering until it wound down, if the toll it took on the body didn’t kill first. Or second—

The more urgent, obvious solution.

“You might not know what the word means,” Vegeta said hoarsely, his teeth teasing at Goku's earlobe as he ground their bodies together, “but your body certainly fucking does.”

Vegeta could feel it already, how hard Goku was for him—he groaned as Vegeta rubbed their bodies together, biting his bloodied lip as he winced at Vegeta, his gaze pleading, asking without words, what are we supposed to do? How do we make this stop?

Vegeta had the only answer.

He pulled Goku down to the ground, their bodies hitting the earth in a tangled, breathless heap. Vegeta rolled onto his back, pulling Goku onto him, his hands digging into the front of Goku's gi until the material began to tear beneath his fingers. Every movement felt frantic—where just moments before everything had felt heavy, like they had been sparring underwater, Vegeta felt suddenly electrified, every synapse on on fire with a singular, burning focus.

Goku's hands seared his skin as they tore off Vegeta's armor, sliding up beneath the top of Vegeta's battlesuit, palming at Vegeta’s ribs. Vegeta shuddered at the feeling, the weight of a full-blooded Saiyan on top of him an immeasurable relief to the fire licking at his skin—even if that Saiyan was fucking _Kakarot_.

“Vegeta,” Goku groaned, and Vegeta’s teeth ached as he felt Goku bury his face against Vegeta’s neck, his mouth hovering over where Vegeta’s pulse throbbed strongest in his throat. “You just—smell so _good_ —”

Vegeta snarled as Goku moved against him, grinding into him in a way that left Vegeta hard and throbbing and utterly frustrated at the useless half-friction. The idiot had no idea what he was doing. Vegeta would just have to take matters into his own hands—literally.

Vegeta reached between them, his hand quickly slipping past the waistband of Goku’s gi. He wrapped his fist around Goku’s cock, his gloved thumb rubbing against the already leaking tip.

This finally earned Vegeta the reaction he was looking for. He felt a vibration against his neck as Goku growled into his skin, the outlines of his teeth pressing against Vegeta’s throat. Vegeta smirked as Goku grabbed him by the wrist, pulling his hand away, and Vegeta’s struggle against him was only for show as Goku pinned both Vegeta’s arms above his head.

“Vegeta,” Goku growled, and Vegeta thrilled when he met Goku’s gaze. Something wild flickered behind his eyes, dark and savage and wholly inhuman. Vegeta licked his lips, his mouth watering and his teeth tingling painfully as he writhed in Goku’s grip.

“Now you’re getting the idea,” Vegeta taunted. And Goku fell for the bait—in an instant, Goku was pulling on the bottom of Vegeta’s battlesuit, tugging the material down until it bunched at Vegeta’s knees, and Vegeta frantically kicked his boots off before stripping away the rest of the garment. Goku had only half-undone his own gi, just enough to expose himself before he was on top of Vegeta again, settling into the space between Vegeta’s legs. The inside of Vegeta’s thighs were wet, slippery with sweat and some unnatural _slick he_ couldn’t explain—some key detail of the Saiyan heat response that no one had ever bothered to mention to him, apparently—

He didn’t have a moment to think about it before Goku was pushing into him, and Vegeta was wholly unprepared. Goku’s cock had felt thick in his hand, but now it winded him as Goku thrust inside. The pain was immediate, raw and searing, and Vegeta felt himself arching into it, breathless and hungering for every hard, relentless snap of Goku’s hips.

Vegeta remained pinned where he was, Goku’s hands pressing heavy against Vegeta’s wrists as he fucked Vegeta into the ground. Goku’s mouth crushed Vegeta’s, their kiss hard and snarling, but Vegeta’s jaws ached for something else entirely—when Goku finally pulled his mouth away, his tongue rasped at Vegeta’s neck, and Vegeta bucked hard against him.

“Just fucking _do it already_ ,” Vegeta hissed, fighting against Goku’s grip.

Goku deliberately slowed his movements as he slid against Vegeta’s body, and Vegeta hated him for it.

“Do _what_?” he panted against Vegeta’s jaw.

Vegeta growled, unsure if Goku was baiting him or being deliberately useless—regardless, Vegeta’s instincts couldn’t be held at bay for a moment longer. His mouth quickly found Goku’s flesh, his teeth scraping against the crook where Goku’s shoulder met his neck, and before Goku could torture him any further, Vegeta bit down.

Goku cried out as Vegeta’s teeth broke his skin, and Vegeta moaned into the wound, savoring the hot, ferrous taste of Goku’s blood as it flooded his mouth. Finally, the fever within him felt on the verge of breaking, and he shuddered hard against Goku’s body as he lapped desperately at Goku’s neck, like he had finally found the right dose of antidote to the venom coursing in his veins.

But then Goku was pulling away, and the favor was returned—finally, Goku’s teeth sank into Vegeta’s skin, marking him just as Vegeta had done to him. Goku’s pace became harsh as he growled into Vegeta’s flesh, and Vegeta throbbed for him, coming painfully close to release as they rutted in the dirt, bruised and bleeding and gnashing.

Vegeta came first, but Goku followed close behind, panting hot and wet against Vegeta’s bite wound as he spilled into Vegeta. It was a long time before he finally released Vegeta’s wrists, but Vegeta felt too dazed and narcotized to bother moving, his fever replaced by the heavy daze of the heat’s after-effects.

Goku pulled away from him, his mouth and lower jaw slick and red with Vegeta’s blood. He was nearly unrecognizable, a drooling beast looming over Vegeta, and as he dragged the back of his hand across his mouth to try and smear away the blood, Vegeta felt his mouth beginning to water all over again.

“Wow,” Goku finally breathed after a beat of panting silence between them. “What the hell was that?”

Vegeta chuckled darkly, his lips pulling back into a bloodied smirk. He could feel one of his hands twitching, and he realized distantly that the dull throbbing in his injured palm had finally faded away. He was reminded then that he should probably return to Bulma’s lab at the first opportunity—there were dozens of those vials still waiting to be destroyed.

Or—and Vegeta nearly laughed at the insanity of the thought—to be carefully preserved.

Could Bulma produce more?

“Well, that depends,” Vegeta finally answered, still smirking as he pulled himself toward Goku. “Would you like to do it again?”

Goku’s eyes went wide, but Vegeta didn’t miss the hunger still flickering in his gaze. He grabbed the front of Goku’s torn gi, and Goku didn’t fight it when Vegeta pulled him into a rough, sudden kiss.

Vegeta savored the taste of his own blood on Goku’s lips.

* * *

 


End file.
